Television sets, set-top boxes, game consoles, stereos, cameras and other entertainment appliances now routinely come with built-in communications capabilities that enable them to upload, download, and display data from other devices which are located within the home. The Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA), for example, develops device interworking profiles for home-based media-sharing services. Now widely accepted in the industry, with more than 100 devices being certified each month, DLNA will soon enable interworking for all sorts of devices utilizing the home local area network (LAN). The DLNA is based on the Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) family of standards. The UPnP is a set of networking protocols which permits networked devices, such as personal computers, printers, Internet gateways, Wi-Fi access points and mobile devices to seamlessly discover each other's presence on the network and establish functional network services for data sharing, communications, and entertainment. The UPnP also standardizes other services, such as the control of home appliances.
Once the user has their media devices connected and running using their home local area network, they will also want to be able to access their content stored on those media devices from remote locations. To address this need, the consumer electronics companies currently prefer a solution that extends the DLNA standard outside the home via UPnP remote access. The current UPnP remote access standard specifies mechanisms that make it possible to extend the home LAN so that it logically includes remote devices located outside the home LAN. The current UPnP Remote Access standard is entitled “Remote Access Architecture: 2. For UPnP™ Version 1.0, Status: Standardized DCP; Date: Apr. 30, 2011; Document Version: 1.0; Service Template Version: 2.00”. The contents of this document are incorporated by reference herein.
Referring to FIG. 1 (PRIOR ART), there is a diagram illustrating the traditional UPnP architecture that allows UPnP devices 102 of one home LAN 104 to be accessible to UPnP devices 106 of another home LAN 108 and vice-versa. In this home-to-home scenario, the two home LANs 104 and 108 respectively include Remote Access Discovery Agents 110 and 112 (RADAs 110 and 112) which are connected to one another by an access network 114. The UPnP Remote Access standard outlines how pairs of RADAs 110 and 112 can bridge the two home LANs 104 and 108 (both UPnP domains). In particular, each RADA 110 and 112 is configured at installation (usually of a physical device) to talk to its corresponding RADA 110 and 112. This configuration also requires bidirectional data flow between the two home LANS 104 and 108.
The current UPnP Remote Access standard's approach falls short in terms of usability and quality of service. For instance, by requiring pairs of RADAs 110 and 112 to be preemptively configured to communicate with each other and only each other results in a rigid system that is ill suited for dealing with the dynamic, on-demand nature of today's networks. Additionally, by requiring pairs of RADAs 110 and 112 to be configured to communicate with each other also creates issues with scalability since each RADA 110 and 112 must be independently configured. Moreover, the bidirectional data flow requirement is often unnecessary and less secure than unidirectional data flow especially in situations where a user does not want to broadcast their devices or information to a third party who only needs to send information to the user. Furthermore, the current UPnP Remote Access standard does not permit the user to access their home devices from an unknown peer (network) such as a friend's personal computer or via a hotel television. Accordingly, there has been and is a need to address these problems and other problems in order to enhance how a user can remotely access a device which is located within their home LAN (or some other home LAN). These needs and other needs are satisfied by the present invention.